You’re Mainlining Hallmark Movies, Part 4

You’re looking for a new thriller or are saying cheers to the end of prohibition

Hi friends,

Welcome to December. First, a confession: I got caught up in a bunch of projects on Friday and forgot to start the gift recommendation thread. I’m happy to host it later this month if there’s interest. Let me know!

And, now, what to read if …

You’re Watching Made-for-Cable Holiday RomComs

Three Holidays and a Wedding by Uzma Jalaluddin and Marissa Stapley

How much do I love holiday romcoms? I’ve spotlighted at least one a year for the past four years. This year’s pick is Three Holidays and a Wedding, which offers triple the holiday joy and two love stories.

Set in 2000 when Christmas, Eid and Hanukkah occurred with days of each other, Three Holidays and a Wedding stars Maryam Aziz and Anna Gibson, strangers who confess their biggest secrets to each other when their flight to Toronto experiences severe turbulence. After making an emergency landing in Snow Falls (!), they find out that Maryam’s longtime crush Saif was sitting two rows behind them and heard everything. While stuck in Snow Falls in the final days of Ramadan and the run-up to Christmas and Hanukkah, Anna befriends Maryam’s family and discovers her favorite actor is filming a holiday romcom in town (the metaness!).

This book, co-written by Uzma Jalaluddin and Marissa Stapley, brought me so much joy. I couldn’t stop smiling while reading it. The tongue-in-cheek references to cheesy Christmas movies combined with two love stories and a great friendship story make this a standout in the 2023 class of holiday romances.

Bonus recommendations: On Instagram, I’m celebrating 12 Days of Holiday romances and hosting a giveaway of this book.

You’re Waiting for the Next Season of “Serial”

The Night Swim by Megan Goldin

I already devoured “The Kids of Rutherford County,” the latest podcast from Serial Productions and The New York Times, about a Tennessee county that arrested and jailed hundreds, if not thousands, of children for petty crimes. It does a remarkable job of examining both the individuals and the systems that enabled the injustice. Megan Goldin’s The Night Swim features a podcaster attempting to uncover the truth about two small-town criminal cases.

Earlier seasons of Rachel Krall’s podcast topped the charts — and set an innocent man free. As she starts to report season three, about a small town torn apart by a rape trial, she receives anonymous letters begging her to investigate the mysterious death of a teenager, Jenny Stills, decades earlier. Even as town officials refuse to answer her questions about Jenny, Rachel grows convinced the two cases are connected.

The Night Swim is a twisty and taut page-turner with a gripping exploration of power and privilege in a small town, as well as society’s treatment of sexual assault survivors. The Night Swim incorporates snippets of Goldin’s podcast, making it an excellent listen as well as a great read. I recently received a copy of the sequel and am excited to dive in.

You’re Toasting to the End of Prohibition

American Demon by Daniel Stashower

Tomorrow marks the 90^th anniversary of the repeal of the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which made the sale of alcohol legal once again. For more on the Prohibition era and the years following it, check out Daniel Stashower’s American Demon, a chronicle of Eliot Ness’s rise and the case that drove him to lash out, ending his political career.

Ness came to Cleveland following his take-down of Al Capone in Chicago with orders from city’s mayor to clean up the corruption in the police department. Months after his arrival in Cleveland, a woman’s torso was found on the shores of Lake Erie. Over the coming years, the serial killer murdered at least 13 people, but Ness remained focused on the police department’s internal operations. Ultimately, with both the 1936 World’s Fair and the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, political leaders forced Ness to take an active role in the murder investigation. His inability to find the killer caused the famous teetotaler to start drinking and his tactics, including burning the city’s shantytowns, turned residents against him.

I learned a lot about 1930s America from this book, and particularly enjoyed the sections on newspapers of the era. As Patton Oswalt (yes, that Patton Oswalt), wrote in a review for the New York Times, “Reading about the push-pull of Cleveland’s news media’s need to trumpet violence while veiling sex — a frequent challenge considering the Torso Killer was fond of removing the genitals of his victims — is one of the head-shaking pleasures of American Demon.”

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Thanks for reading! I’ll be back on the Thursday with a Q&A featuring Becca Freeman about her book The Christmas Orphans Club.

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